Families Experience Economic Integration At One San Antonio School

There’s much less economic diversity in most San Antonio schools, where people with similar incomes tend to be grouped together because of historic patterns of segregation. The new program is attempting to change that in five specialty schools.

The San Antonio Independent School District launched a bold new enrollment policy at five specialty schools this year, weighing the lottery based on income and geography to maintain a balance of working class and middle class students.

Creating socially and economically diverse schools goes against the status quo in a city as economically segregated as San Antonio. The question now is whether families will like the idea enough to return in years to come.

Most of the city’s neighborhoods — and most schools — are divided by class. And it didn’t get that way by chance.